Gunners get late winner over Pompey

FORMER Arsenal captain William Gallas kept his side's title challenge just about breathing with a late headed winner against Portsmouth.

Arsenal toiled aimlessly for great swathes of the game in which Pompey manager Tony Adams returned to his old club for the first time as a fully-fledged manager.

The reception Adams received was affectionate, bordering on reverence, but he did earn himself the he sort of battling performance from his Portsmouth side that he always gave during 20 years in an Arsenal shirt in which he lifted 10 major trophies.

He dropped Jermain Defoe to the bench after three straight defeats had culminated in a 4-1 home defeat against West Ham.

He received a dogged response - especially from defenders Sol Campbell and Sylvain Distin - but this loss will leave him even more desperate to use a chunk of the £20million the club are set to receive for Lassana Diarra in the January transfer window.

This was their fourth straight defeat and that is relegation territory. And quite why he waited until the 88th minute to bring on Defoe is a mystery.

The Gunners dominated possession and Adams continually was out on the touchline urging his side not to defend so deep.

But, without the injured Cesc Fabregas, in midfield Arsenal were light on invention, resorting to speculative long shots.

It was a dreadful, stale-as-Christmas-turkey first half, full of cagey football and two teams desperate for a confidence-boosting result.

Even so Portsmouth could easily have gone in at half-time with the lead. The ball was swung over from the right by David Nugent and Peter Crouch jumped higher than Gallas to send the ball crashing against Manuel Almunia’s post. It was the strike of the match.

True, Emmanuel Adebayor had an equally good opening which he too squandered, riding the tackle of Campbell and bearing down on James in the Portsmouth goal only for Distin to arrive just in time with a precision tackle to sweep the ball away for a corner.

Distin also cleared off the line from Mikael Silvestre just after half-time and Pompey goalkeeper David James pulled off the save of the match when he raced out to save with his feet from Samir Nasri.

But for all Arsenal’s huff and puff there was precious little guile.

They miss terribly the invention of the injured Fabregas. Nasri simply does not have the same presence.

Yet when Gallas planted his header past James, who flapped in the breeze for a swirling free-kick after 81 minutes, the Gunners fans were singing a familiar refrain.